Ye children of man! whose life is a spanProtracted with sorrow from day to day,Naked and featherless, feeble and querulous,Sickly, calamitous creatures of clay. AristophanesBirds. Trans. by John Hookham Frere.

And say without our hopes, without our fears,Without the home that plighted love endears,Without the smile from partial beauty won,Oh! what were man?a world without a sun. CampbellPleasures of Hope. Pt. II. L. 21.

To lead, or brass, or some such badMetal, a princes stamp may addThat value, which it never had.But to the pure refined ore,The stamp of kings imparts no moreWorth, than the metal held before. Thomas CarewTo T. H. A Lady Resembling My Mistress.

So man, the moth, is not afraid, it seems,To span Omnipotence, and measure mightThat knows no measure, by the scanty ruleAnd standard of his own, that is to-day,And is not ere to-morrows sun go down. CowperThe Task. Bk. VI. L. 211.

A sacred spark created by his breath, The immortal mind of man his image bears;A spirit living midst the forms of death, Oppressed, but not subdued, by mortal cares. Sir H. DavyWritten After Recovery from a Dangerous Illness.

A man is the whole encyclopedia of facts. The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn, and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, lie folded already in the first man. EmersonEssays. History.

We are coming we, the young men, Strong of heart and millions strong;We shall work where you have trifled, Cleanse the temple, right the wrong,Till the land our fathers visioned Shall be spread before our ken,We are through with politicians; Give us Men! Give us Men! Arthur GuitermanChallenge of the Young Men. In Life, Nov. 2, 1911.

Man is all symmetrie,Full of proportions, one limbe to another, And all to all the world besides: Each part may call the farthest, brother:For head with foot hath privite amitie, And both with moons and tides. HerbertTemple. The Church Man.

God give us men. A time like this demandsStrong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands!Men whom the lust of office does not kill,Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy,Men who possess opinions and a will,Men who love honor, men who cannot lie. J. G. HollandWanted.

Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,Now green in youth, now withering on the ground;Another race the following spring supplies;They fall successive; and successive rise. HomerIliad. Bk. VI. L. 181. Popes trans.

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; * * * * * *Yours is the Earth and every thing thats in it,Andwhich is moreyoull be a man, my son! KiplingIf. First and Last Lines.

But in our Sanazarro tis not so,He being pure and tried gold; and any stampOf grace, to make him current to the world,The duke is pleased to give him, will add honourTo the great bestower; for he, though allowdCompanion to his master, still preservesHis majesty in full lustre. MassingerGreat Duke of Florence. Act I. Sc. 1.

Tis but a Tent where takes his one days rest A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest. A Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrash Strikes and prepares it for another Guest. Omar KhayyamRubaiyat. St. 45. FitzGeralds Trans.

What a chimera, then, is man! what a novelty, what a monster, what a chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! A judge of all things, feeble worm of the earth, depositary of the truth, cloaca of uncertainty and error, the glory and the shame of the universe! PascalThoughts. Ch. X.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;The proper study of mankind is man. PopeEssay on Man. Ep. II. L. 1. In Popes first ed. of Moral Essays it read The only science of mankind is man. For the last phrase see GroteHistory of Greece. Vol. IX. P. 573. Ascribed to Socrates; also to XenophonMemor. I. 1.

Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;Still by himself abused and disabused;Created half to rise, and half to fall;Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled;The glory, jest and riddle of the world! PopeEssay on Man. Ep. II. L. 13.

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And, yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling, you seem to say so.Hamlet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 313.

This is the state of man: to-day he puts forthThe tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms,And bears his blushing honours thick upon him:The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surelyHis greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,And then he falls, as I do.Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 352.

Nietzsche he was a confirmed Life Force worshipper. It was he who raked up the Superman, who is as old as Prometheus; and the 20th century will run after this newest of the old crazes when it gets tired of the world, the flesh, and your humble servant. Bernard ShawMan and Superman. Act III.

Give us a man of Gods own mould Born to marshall his fellow-men;One whose fame is not bought and sold At the stroke of a politicians pen.Give us the man of thousands ten, Fit to do as well as to plan;Give us a rallying-cry, and then Abraham Lincoln, give us a Man. E. C. StedmanGive us a Man.

Ah God, for a man with heart, head, hand,Like some of the simple great goneForever and ever by,One still strong man in a blatant land,Whatever they call him, what care I,Aristocrat, democrat, autocratoneWho can rule and dare not lie. TennysonMaud. X. 5.